


so why do you waste my time (is the answer)

by kitmarlowed



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 07:03:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3801208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His employer mentions it, mentions a lot of things: "You're unsettling, I can use that," and Wesley doesn't remark to the irony of that because what is Wilson Fisk if not the very most frightening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so why do you waste my time (is the answer)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for canon-typical violence I suppose.

Wilson Fisk gives a nod and Wesley wages war and it's all for this city. There's really not much besides that.

Except, _except_.

 

James Wesley is nineteen when he moves himself to Japan, he's twenty-four when he leaves it. It's no great loss, in fact he rather likes speaking almost exclusively in English again even if half the time he has to simplify it. His employer mentions that, mentions a lot of things: "You're unsettling, I can use that," and Wesley doesn't remark to the hilarity of that because what is Wilson Fisk if not the very most frightening.

 

 

If this is his destiny, to follow this blurred and murky path with only the light of one man to guide him, he's not complaining -- he's something, he matters, he's necessary. Say these things to yourself over and over and eventually you forget that you were ever anything else.

 

 

This city is too much now, he can barely imagine what it will be made anew when they succeed. But he believes in Fisk, everything else is irrelevant. Like how much he hates the racing crush of it, how loud it is, the way he can't get it off his skin. He's marked by this, he's marked by every facet of this. He wouldn't mind so much but there's only one mark he wants to have.

Maybe, though, this is the mark he wants. If he can't love this city at least he will never be truly apart from it.

Maybe, he thinks when it's dark, when there's blood returning to the ground, they're all just players in the game Hell's Kitchen plays. The city chose Wilson Fisk, and Wilson Fisk chose him. The city can't hate him back after that, can it? 

 

 

"How did it go?" his employer asks and Wesley sighs, takes off his glasses as if the motion itself will quell the headache that started with the day, says, "We have an issue. The Russians. They explained, after some prompting, why they were short. Apparently they were set upon by a lone man in a black mask."

Fisk's hands start moving to his cuffs, "A vigilante?"

"Looks like it, they said he let the girls go." Wesley stays where he is as Fisk sways, the anger rippling, and yes, he's the closest breakable object here but what matters is trust. He's been hit before, he doesn't mind.

Fisk calms, deep breaths, works it out. Looks at him, "We've come to far to be inconvenienced by this," he says.

"What do you want me to do?"

And Wesley has never believed in anything more concretely in his life than this.

 

 

He doesn't like how they talk when his employer isn't there, as if Wesley is just as like to commiserate with them. So of course he relishes the chance to make Leland recoil, as afraid of the dog as the master. He doesn't trust any of them, and he voices this.

"I cannot do this alone, you know that, Wesley," Fisk says, as if that makes it any better. "You know how every facet of this leads into the other."

Wesley's vision is blurring, his glasses hurt to wear but it hurts just as much to be half-blind. Maybe his prescription needs altering. "Sir," he says, "I understand everything, I just--"

"I do not trust them, either, save perhaps Madame Gao."

That's all he needed to know. Wesley can't protect him if he doesn't see the danger.

Wesley can't really protect him much at all.

 

 

When he was younger, fighting for his life in streets a different kind of mean to these and in a different mother tongue, he used to think that this was all it was: fighting for yourself.

Now he's older, maybe wiser, and he's learnt categorically that of the three things he held as truth for all the years that led him here only one is true. The first two have shifted: there is no such thing as love, false, and nothing matters more than life, false. Power is still absolute, though, that never changes.

He’s twisted everything he was into this new thing, this man with no pulse, just the thrum of a fire that’s not his in his veins. This thing capable of saying just the right words in just the right tone of voice to make a man crumble, to shatter faith and illusions of safety, to make men see that the only option is the one he gives them, to see their wives again, their daughters, friends again. The days he resents Fisk for what he’s made of himself are few and far between. Blurred with the passage of time.

 

 

The new penthouse is a symbol. It's empty, clear, clean. A blank canvas. It is the worst case scenario for Hell's Kitchen.

"This is necessary," his employer says, more to himself than Wesley, whilst the bombs are put in place.

"It's just the Russians," says Wesley, "the city won't miss them. It's not destruction so much as pest control."

Fisk isn't looking at him, stood at the window, surveying the calm before they wipe an entire community off the face of the city.

Wesley moves closer, slowly. "If we absorb the interest, what of Gao and the others?"

"We explain to them that all our profits will increase."

"The Japanese won't like it--" Fisk looks at him now, the hard eyed look that tells him to shut up, leave it alone.

 

 

Sometimes it's hard to believe that the man asking for wine advice is the same man capable of crushing skulls with car doors. When Vanessa smiles at Wesley, when Vanessa smiles at Fisk smiles at Wesley, it's hard to remember that these are people fully aware of the danger they pose to themselves and others.

He's always been slow with a gun, he himself is a danger of a different kind, perhaps this city isn't what'll kill him after all.

"How long?" Vanessa asks, and it's late and she'd invited him to dine with them, his employer is talking to Francis.

As much as he fights it, it feels a bit like betrayal when he speaks, asks, "I'm sorry?"

Vanessa leans closer, hand closed around his wrist and it's such an odd echo that he can't quite look away, "I've known him," she says, "for mere days, weeks at most. He tells me you've been with him for years. How long have you been--"

She can't ask him this, if she asks him, if it's voiced there's no going back from it. "Ms Marianna," he says, quiet, "please."

Beneath her skin burns a similar fire to Mr Fisk's and she is not easily deterred. "It's alright, Wesley, call me Vanessa" she says. "We neither of us mind, in fact--"

Wesley can barely breathe with all of this in front of him. "Vanessa," he says again, looks at her, and she's blurring at the edges but his glasses are still on and his head doesn't ache, "please."

He extricates his wrist, slowly, and distances himself from her, checks his phone.

All Wilson Fisk needs is his loyalty, anything else is excess, anything else is unnecessary and he isn't that, is he?

She follows him. "Wesley, _James_ \--" and his employer joins them, says, "What is it?"

Vanessa’s hand is at his shoulder, rolling fabric between her fingers and then smoothing the creases. "I think I've--"

"Wesley," Wilson Fisk says, "stay here with us tonight."

"Yes," he says, and his vision clears, "yes, sir."

 

 

Even if all of this is to end in fire, he can't think of anything he'd rather die for than this. It's everything, it's the city, it's these people. It's going to happen, Hell's Kitchen under Fisk, and maybe he'll be around to see it.


End file.
